


Undertale Speech Patterns

by FollowerofMercy



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Character Analysis, Gen, Notes, Spoilers, Writing Exercise, especially chapter 9, rated for language, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-02-17 01:09:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 5,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13065996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FollowerofMercy/pseuds/FollowerofMercy
Summary: I got bored and wanted to procrastinate doing actual writing, and dialogue is my favorite thing to write, so here are my takes on a bunch of Undertale characters' speech patterns and how to reflect them! Mostly for my own use, but I might as well share.These aren't strict rules or comprehensive. I'll add to this as I get more stuff.





	1. PAPYRUS

Real chatterbox with little filter between his mind and his mouth. As such, his speech is very fluid, relatively formal, with almost no stalls. He jumps from topic to topic very quickly. He only uses stall words when he hits a wall, either surprised or realizes something, and then his entire speech comes to a screeching halt. He stutters, stalls and talks himself in circles before he catches his stride again and continues. Generally, he’ll make up something on the spot instead and run with it. He’s very difficult to frazzle. He speaks very quickly but enunciates very clearly. Excellent, if slightly outdated, vocabulary. A lot of pop culture passes over his head, except for the extremely obscure things that only he knows and not even Sans or Alphys get. Slowing down, getting quieter and enunciating less are signs of being very distressed or angry. Not knowing what to say – and NOT bullshitting something on the spot - only happens when very uncomfortable but also under a lot of pressure to do the right thing. He’ll stutter with important things until he finds the perfect words.

 

Thinks out loud. His mind tends to move faster and in different directions than his mouth, reflected in his flightiness. More focused on getting the sheer volume of his ideas out than describing each thing clearly, so his speech is almost all nouns and verbs and things necessary for tenses. Rarely gets hung up on not knowing where to take the conversation because he’s already on a dozen different topics by the time he finishes one idea.

 

Doesn’t interrupt people because he values what everyone else has to say, but WILL excitedly hop in place while making a silly face when he really, really wants to add something. Cute high-pitched whine optional. Finds it irritating when Sans and Gaster interrupt people. Gets very internally offended when he himself gets interrupted (his family almost never did so to him, so he never got used to it. Other people do it a lot, not to be mean it’s just the only way to get a word in edgewise before Pap changes the topic again). He will interrupt and steamroll right over someone if he’s really uncomfortable, like talking about killing people, or if he’s is extremely angry (which almost never happens) and he makes snide comments to push the argument further. Before he interrupts out of discomfort, he gets uncomfortably quiet and then suddenly states that he has to leave. He never interrupts others because he knows that’s RUDE.

I’m so tempted to make him really smart at all times, but he is a bit of a ditz in-game. He says a lot of weird stuff.

Examples:

“UHH… I MEAN.. YOU KNOW, UM… YEAH, THE THING! THE VERY IMPORTANT THING, WHICH I NEED TO GO DO. NOW. BYE!”

“OH, HELLO HUMAN! HAVE YOU MET MY NEW FRIEND YET? HE IS QUITE FASCINATING! DID YOU KNOW THAT HE ONCE WRESTLED A BEAR?!” to the other friend, without pause. “WHAT’S A BEAR?”

“Don’t do that again.”

“I DON’T KNOW WHY IT BOTHERS ME SO MUCH! I JUST – I FEEL LIKE... I want my brother back.”

“…” “…” “…” “WHOOPSIE I JUST REALIZED I PUT A WHITE SOCK WITH THE REDS! GOODBYE!”

“YOU CAN DO IT! THE GREAT PAPYRUS BELIEVES IN YOU, AND I AM ALMOST NEVER WRONG! I MEAN I WAS WRONG ABOUT SKELETON’S NATURAL TALENT FOR SURFING, BUT HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT SKELETONS CAN’T SWIM? ISN’T THAT WEIRD?”


	2. Alphys

Who boy. Stutters, obviously. I like having her stutter on y’s and u’s. Extremely adverb-heavy language. While intelligent, her vocabulary is fairly limited unless it’s a very technical topic. Lots of slang. LOTS of stall words, helps her keep from stuttering. Will occasionally repeat entire words or parts of sentences if she stutters. Is typically determined to almost finish any sentence she starts, which can take a while until she eventually trails off because she doesn’t know where she was going with it, or gets too uncomfortable, or changes her mind. She usually completes the main thought but aborts secondary ideas, and unfortunately, she _starts_ a lot of secondary ideas.

 

Uncomfortable with bouts of silence, but it not good at filling that silence. She tries, but gets nervous halfway through and awkwardly drops off. Can rattle off a long topic she’s interested about, but general conversation is a struggle. Does NOT think about where her conversation is going at all, which is quite a bit of her problem getting cold feet halfway through a sentence. Is too tied up in getting one word in front of the other that she doesn’t pay attention to how she’s stringing them together. (This is less true in her writing, where she rambles horribly). Favors unnaturally complex sentences that can be cut apart and stuck back together in a better order, if she had’ve just taken a second to think before speaking. Not quite Yoda speak, but close.

 

Poor grammar. Tends to stick phrases in with little connection to what they were already talking about. Speaking is not her thing. However, she _does_ like to talk and it’s very personally frustrating that she can’t communicate well.

 

She’s mostly made peace with the fact that it’s difficult for her to talk to others, so she rarely gets angry and stops talking, but Undyne and Sans both have pushed her too far in the past with interruptions/trying to finish her sentences for her that she gets up and leaves (they both make a conscious effort to not do that anymore – Sans is better at it). She doesn’t care so much when Mettaton does it because she expects him to interrupt her. With him, it mostly just hurts her feelings. While Papyrus’s volume turns her off a bit, he’s probably one of her favorite people to talk to about anything except anime (he really isn’t interested and while he’ll usually put up with things to be nice, he’s voiced his displeasure enough that she doesn’t bring it up anymore). She also enjoys talking to post-void Gaster when he’s in a good mood, and Asgore. Papyrus and Asgore rarely, if ever, interrupt her. She tends to get stuck as Mettaton’s cheerleader, though really enjoys talking to him when he’s in the rare listening mood. Uses passive tenses a lot.

 

Examples: 

“Oh that’s easy! You just take a car battery and hook it up to either end.”  
“Uh…um, I mean, yes?”  
“How’re y-y-you?”  
“Would y-you _please_ let me fff-finish?!”  
“Oh, u-um, okay.”  
“We’re gonna go get some su-supplies from the dump and then we, uh, we’re gonna go look at the rocks. In the ceiling, yeah." [several seconds pass] "The stars!”  
"I can take y-you to the park and we can have a picnic! There’s cute guys there. What should we pack? Uh, for the picnic?”


	3. sans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made this with a father-figure W. D. Gaster in mind, so whenever I mention the skelebro's dad, it's him.

Lazy but shockingly well-spoken. Excellent vocabulary and pacing, like his father, but will swallow words. However, he ALWAYS enunciates just well enough to be understood, and while quiet, makes a conscious effort to speak up and clearly (especially while in lecture mode).

 

Is always thinking exactly one sentence ahead. Can cause him to drop off what he’s currently talking about when his next sentence changes. Favors pausing over stall words. Can be a chatterbox like Papyrus, but with a filter. He can reign his thoughts into a coherent stream better than his brother. I’m always tempted to make him a stoic silent person, but in-game, he’s chatty. Fairly flippant, yet charismatic and friendly.

 

Doesn’t really respect what others have to say unless he’s gonna file it away for later use, so is really bad about interrupting people for a different topic. I imagine that he is a bit of a manipulative prick and so he tends to pay very close attention to new people and doesn’t interrupt them, hence why everyone has a great first impression of him. He encourages “useful” people to spill their life stories to him. It’s only when he gets a good feel for them and a few layers of dirt that he’ll relax and start interrupting them. He rarely ever uses that dirt, but likes to have it just in case.

 

Favors interruptions and won’t try to finish others’ sentences, because he feels he already knows what they’re going to say. Is, oddly enough, really great for Alphys to talk to because he respects what she has to say – usually. Flipping between attentive and flippant is her biggest problem with him.

 

Sans is extremely quick on his feet, in part due to always being one sentence ahead, and rarely doesn’t know what to say. It’s very, very difficult to shock him into silence. If uncomfortable, will not show it and instead deflect with a chuckle or a joke. When he does use stall words because he’s surprised, it’s usually a flat “what” or a chuckle. In the rare instances that he opens up and says something honest/uncomfortable, he stalls a lot with “uh”. Usually among the first to recover from something shocking and quip with something to defuse tension.

 

Unsure if he’s always analyzing and predicting how things are going to go, or just laying back for the ride, or some combination of both. Not particularly emotive while speaking, though he excels at impressions. His tones are “flat” and “joking.” Talks as if he’s telling a story when he does monologue, which is surprisingly frequent when he’s talking to people he looks down on/disrespects. Prone to lecturing people, but knows who he can get away with doing that to. Will NOT lecture Toriel, but will do it to Frisk and maybe Alphys.

 

Examples:

“I was going to say something, but I forgot”

  
“…heh, sounds about right.”

  
“i need to go take care of some things. paps, you mind cleaning up?”

  
:Frisk shares a story about a really awful and dangerous experience. Everyone else is staring: “so, you really put the “risk” in frisk, huh?”

  
[long-winded explanation on EXP and LOVE]

[long-winded explanation on something you didn’t ask him]

:Frisk asks him about literally anything: [three word response that gets progressively more infuriating the most Frisk pushes him]


	4. Undyne

Exclamation points! Speaks like an excitable college student. Decent amount of slang and stall words, though not nearly as bad as Alphys. Is probably among the most “normal” speakers when calm. When very excited, gets VERY excited. Does not enunciate well, except when trying to express complex ideas/feelings (and even then, full of contractions and rambling, aborted sentences until she can pin down exactly what she’s feeling.) Tends to circle around an uncomfortable topic like a nervous shark before she finds the way she wants to say it, and then she goes straight in and is fairly eloquent.

She is actually a pretty deep person when she wants to be, but some things really just affect her on a surface level. She can be a tad insensitive with some subjects, _especially_ over the phone, but if she can see somebody's body language, she's incredibly perceptive of people's moods and what is/isn't acceptable to talk about... once she gets a reaction. This can lead her to introduce an awkward/painful subject just to flounder (heh) once things get weird. Because she can't see body language over the phone, it leads to a lot of problems. Text isn't quite as bad, but she still isn't great at understanding other peoples' tones and inflections. Also prone to taking things at face value, hence why she believes anime is real, but is still capable of deeper thought, like her concerns at seeing Alphys looking over the waterfall abyss.

Behaves like Asgore when in serious mode (with her own verbal color), but in her off time, has a very uniquely Undyne speech pattern. Ends many non-questions with question marks. Kinda “girly” speech. Very enthusiastic, lots of adjectives and adverbs. Uses the time describing one thing to think about what’s she’s going to say next. Can talk herself into a corner, rushing headlong into a topic with no clear idea where it’s going. When stuck and trying to think of what to say next, tends to stall with ums and encouragement/excited sounds. Opens most sentences with a stall word like “Yeah!” because she starts before quite knowing how she’s going to finish it.

Is really impatient and her biggest issue with Alphys is trying to finish her sentences for her because of the stutter. Can be flighty and interrupt people if she gets too excited, but generally lets them finish. Never interrupts people she looks up to (Asgore, Gerson). She unconsciously interrupts people she considers equals or less cool than herself (Papyrus, Alphys). It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love them more than anything, just that she does look down on them a little. Clear dichotomy between “protector” figures and “protectee” figures.

Prone to directing all conversation towards things she likes, like anime and violence and Alphys. Gets knocked off balance by hard questions and stuff _very_ easily. She’s always on guard physically. Not so verbally.

 

Examples:

 **“** YEAH! We’re gonna have so much fun at the beach!!! We can bury Alphys in the sand, wrestle sharks with our BARE HANDS, and I can TEACH MY FAVORITE LITTLE NOODLE HOW TO SWIM!!!” :noogies Papyrus:

 **“** what.”

“Nevermind that, Papyrus! We’ll MAKE it awesome!”

 **“** B-but U-Undyne, I – “ “THIS IS GONNA BE THE BEST DATE EVER!”

 **“** We have things under control??! Maybe?? Yeah! We got this.”


	5. Toriel

Probably the easiest to write, at least for me. Extremely formal but comfortable being so. Because of the extreme formality, seems a bit stiff and insincere. Relies heavily on inflection, expression, body language and tone to make her speech warm and honest. (This does not carry over into her texting well _at all)._

Does not stutter, ever.

When in Queen mode, formal and clipped. When relaxing with friends and family, is still very formal but also sophisticated as hell, and occasionally swears to make herself seem younger/more relatable (which is not helped by living isolated in the ruins for who knows how long). That, or she does swear like a sailor and just hides it from children. If caught off guard and does not know what to say, will not say anything until she recovers. Will express disappointment, anger and pleasure freely, but hides other emotions a little better. (She’s still pretty emotional, though.)

She’s a good listener, if prone to giving advice unasked, and genuinely cares about people. If she dislikes somebody, there’s no question of it. Is _incredibly_ observant about other people, I think on a similar level to Sans. She’s very good at figuring out why people behave the way they do, which doesn’t help her tendency to be a bit of a know-it-all when it comes to advice and how to help people. She thinks she knows best and, most times, she does. Her speech is pretty consistent no matter who she is speaking to, but the subject matter changes drastically with her audience. 

She almost never uses contractions or slang, and if she does use slang, probably does so incorrectly. She uses very direct sentences, rarely beats around the bush and rarely uses figures of speech. The ones she does use are very outdated and she typically has to explain it to anyone except Asgore or Gerson. Her language is not particularly colorful, though she compensates with her body language, facial expressions and tone.

Examples:

“Greetings, I am Toriel. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

  
“Would you care to join me for lunch?”

  
“I do not feel that this is a good idea.”

  
“Did I stutter?” (probably to Asgore)

  
“Do I make myself clear?”

  
“While I would be more than happy to let you stay the night, I feel as though your family would miss you. Your visit has been a pleasure.”


	6. Grillby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Super short, I'm sorry I love many peoples' representations of his character but I haven't done anything of my own to analyze. I particularly like Trefoil's renditions of him.  
> I'll do another chapter with my take on him if I actually get around to including him in something.

He talks? When he does, it’s quiet, short and clipped. Unsure if he’s very witty and choses to wait for the right moment, is secretly brimming with repressed irritation and can’t open his mouth for fear of saying something cruel, simply doesn’t care to talk or is just awful at putting his ideas into words. His canon personality doesn’t give much source material to go off of, so have a field day with him based on the story. Really fun character to write because there are so many possibilities. He’s probably very quiet, both in how frequently he speaks and in volume.

Example:

“…Good job.”


	7. Asgore

NEVER interrupts people. If he needs to interject into a conversation without a convenient break, he’ll make use of his size and body language to make others be silent.

Small talk and pleasantries come easily. Rather halting, stiff speech when he isn’t making small talk. Not necessarily a shallow person, but thinks slowly and steadily and his speech reflects that. I hate to call him dim because I really like his character and dim people get a bad reputation, but I really can’t think of a better word. While not supremely book smart or quick on his feet, he KNOWS himself. He’s very solid and stable and so rarely needs to go back on himself (except for the one, major time that seriously messed him up after his kids died.)

If a bear or glacier could talk with a southern drawl, it’d be him. Picked up a lot of Toriel’s sentence structure, but not necessarily her word choice. When he is speaking about something other than small talk, he makes a conscious effort to copy Toriel’s speech style. Rarely gets angry, but when he does, wars start. Not very good at hiding his emotions, but at the same time, doesn’t tend to feel quite the same complexities that a character like Toriel or Alphys would. He rarely has conflicting feelings.

I assume he has an accent and a deep, booming but not overly loud voice. However, I imagine he enunciates very well and almost never swallows his words. Honestly I think he has more of a Midwestern accent than a southern one. He thinks carefully before he speaks about other people, but he can answer questions about himself very quickly. He does a lot of things to make himself seem approachable and friendly, including trying to learn internet slang with… results. They’re definitely something. Overall flowing, smooth conversation once he starts to relax, like his glorious beard. He’s a strange mix of dopey and regal.

He demands respect through his size and life experience, but his overly friendly demeanor makes it so he needs to remind people that he is king for a reason, and one of the few survivors of the war that nearly wiped their people out. He’s kind and genuine and very, very bad at deception on the fly. However, if he can make up a story beforehand, he can pull it off pretty well. It’s just surprise lies that make him stutter and trip over himself. He favors silence over stuttering. It’s pretty easy to shock him into silence, and he’ll probably rub the back of his head when that happens. His movements are slow and graceful

Examples: 

“Would you like some tea?”

  
“Howdy! It sure is great to see you again!”

  
“How can I help you?”

“I am so sorry to hear that…  I am afraid that I cannot do much, but my door is always open for you and your family.”


	8. Muffet

Sickly sweet. Lots of endearments, honey, dearie, sugar, etc. She isn’t so much manipulative as very direct and aggressive, which makes her come off predatory and creepy. When talking to equals and people she cares about, the predatory goes away but the endearments and flattery stay, and so it’s hard to determine when she’s being honest. She lets very little emotion show that isn’t useable to manipulate or intimidate her audience.

 

She speaks perfectly professional, almost as well as Toriel. Unlike Toriel, she purposefully keeps her body language neutral or aggressive to keep her manner stiff and indecipherable. She will use contractions and has very adverb/adjective heavy language. Her overall tone is simultaneously flirty and condescending. She talks like a storybook fairy godmother. She giggles a lot to herself, but it always sounds false, and it’s her version of stall words. She very rarely uses traditional stall words like “uh”.

 

When speaking, she offhandedly mentions the actual topic of her sentence and talks circles around the true meaning. Her threats are sudden but often spoken in the same tone as the rest of her speech, unless her target just _really_ isn’t getting the point. It can be very difficult to tell what’s a joke and what isn’t, or if she ever really jokes. She asks a lot of questions that aren’t actually questions. She never speaks plainly, despite not having a particularly advanced vocabulary. Also, she blatantly interrupts others when she doesn’t agree with what they’re talking about, or if it makes her uncomfortable. She doesn’t handle conversation well when she can’t bully the other party into submission, and she gets flustered when that happens.

 

When speaking, she moves a lot – little twitches, playing with the hem of her dress, licking her lips, etc. She makes unnerving eye contact for the duration of the conversation. It’s a strange discord between her unwavering stare and the twitchiness of the rest of her. I’m not sure if she blinks, and if she does, it’s never all eyes at once. At any given point, she has at least three eyes on her target. She’s also doesn’t use facial expressions like everyone else, like she’s wearing a mask. She doesn’t express much with her eyes, instead using her mouth the most to emote. The most she does with her eyes is narrow them as an involuntary display of irritation or displeasure. She drops her gaze for similar instances as Sans would drop his smile.

 

Examples: 

“Ahuhu~ This new recipe truly turned out delightful. You would like another one, wouldn’t you?”

  
“Dearie, I assure you, my baking is better than _Grillby’s._ You don’t have any reason to go there. Stay here awhile, my pleasure. _I insist_.”

  
“Such lovely, thin legs you have. It’d be a shame if someone were to break them… I bet it wouldn’t take much pressure at all. Tea?”

  
Other: “Um… isn’t it a little unsafe to bring a horde of spiders to an infant’s birthday party?”

Muffet: “Don’t be silly, Sweetie, the spiders are perfectly harmless.”

Other: “But-“

Muffet: “ _As I was saying,_ the spiders are looking forward to baking for this lovely occasion. We will arrive at 5pm sharp.”

Other: “But!”

Muffet: “Goodbye~”


	9. Flowey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flowey uses some colorful language. Also he's really fun to do dialogue for.

He's always trying to sound tough/cool. Adheres very strongly to a turn-based conversation. He wants to see your reaction for everything he says, like a game, and will push you for more dialogue. It’s rare that he finds a perceived equal to talk to, so he rarely has a conversation for the sake of having an actual conversation. Sometimes he’ll pick somebody to talk _at_ , often Papyrus, but usually he’s poking people to see what they’ll do or say. Rarely talks _to_ The turn-based conversation stems in part from his upbringing with Toriel, who speaks similarly but for different reasons, and the power balance with Chara growing up. He takes after his father’s mannerisms but follows his mother’s structure. Talks openly/freely with the player because he does perceive them as an equal and is desperate to have a meaningful conversation (even if he won’t admit it to himself).

 

Everything he does or says is showboating or manipulation, right up until somebody hits a nerve and he succumbs to either rage, fear or sadness. He’s pretty emotional for somebody that can’t feel. Because he’s mentally a child, his language is fairly uncomplicated – that does NOT mean he’s infantile or stupid – and he embellishes things _a lot_. He has a thirst for attention and to be taken seriously, so a lot of his speech plays more on the side of dramatic. Then again, his life has been pretty dramatic.

 

He uses a very, very active voice and very action-y words. His language is very colorful and showy, but in a kiddish way compared to, say, Mettaton. However, he is more than capable of handling mature topics with a certain level of calm and a better understanding than some adults. He can keep his cool and keep a somber façade as long as the conversation doesn’t get derailed from what he expects.

 

He’s pretty observant, though not quite so much as his mother or Sans, and he lacks tact when he gets riled up. He _tries_ to be a conniving mastermind, but he’s impatient and gets frustrated easily. He got spoiled by the RESET button and so can’t deal with things he dislikes. He quickly defaults to threats, screaming and crying once his plans get messed up, or he feels like he isn’t in control.

 

When caught off-guard, he babbles. He shares information both about himself and others that he didn’t intend to, and lets a lot of emotion show. When surprised or upset, he talks without planning and ends up aborting a lot of sentences. He rarely uses stall words, but repeats fragments of what he’s already said. He has very unique speech distinct from his parents when he’s stressed, very childlike.

 

He’s very good at using body language to manipulate his audience, which covers a lot for his rather mediocre verbal tact. When he’s trying to disarm his victim, he bobs cutely in place, tilts his head back, smiles sweetly, etc. He moves a lot, whether swaying place or ruffling his petals. When he’s trying to “subtly” threaten his victim, he lets the ground twitch with his vines and roots under the surface, make them think they’re seeing things. His grin stretches a little wider, unnaturally so, showing teeth he shouldn’t have. His face warps into freakish amalgamations of living and dead persons. When he’s being overtly aggressive, he keeps bullets floating around menacingly, laughs, deforms his face even more, and flails appendages way too close for comfort. He doesn’t respect personal space, but gets mad when others don’t respect his.

 

Examples:  

“And then, I TORE him apart with my vines!” Flowey leaned a little closer, grinning in anticipation for the reaction. He pouted when his victim remained impassive. He recovered quickly and drew back his lips in a sneer. “He _screamed,_ trashbag. And you. Didn’t. Do. Anything _.”_ Flowey hissed, punctuating each word with a jab.

_“_ NO! You don’t understand ANYTHING! Y-you don’t know anything! You don’t, y-you can’t- _JUST LEAVE ME ALONE_!”

 

“Death is a funny thing. It’s such a big deal for everyone else, with all the crying and the wailing and the grieving, but for creatures like _us…”_ Flowey paused and smirked at Frisk. When they remained silent, he continued. “For us, it’s nothing. It’s a game. There are so many _creative_ ways to die.”

 

“Ugh, gosh diddly darn fucking furries.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly you could write a novel on just Flowey. I actually wasn't going to have much of him in anything I was going to write, but now I want to bring him in just for his dialogue.


	10. W. D. Gaster - My Dingus, Post Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gaster has minimal presence in canon, so here's how I write my take on him and his character. He can go so many different directions though - cold and clinical, total spastic goofball, raging Asperger's, mute, awkward dork, the options are truly limitless.

Almost never uses “Ums” or any stall words. Will pause to collect his thoughts before speaking, frequently, and speaks _fairly_  formally. Uses natural contractions but rarely swallows his words, and enunciates clearly. Punctuates his speech with hand gestures and, while pausing to think of what’s he’s about to say, will use hand gestures to collect his thoughts. There are only two instances when he’ll use stall words: when he’s actively having a good time and then something catches him off guard, like he’s already mid sentence and gets interrupted, or when he has paused for an unusually long time and needs to make some indication that he _will_ respond, just doesn’t know how yet. Well-disposed for long, technical speeches.

On a similar formality level to Toriel, but more lenient/less stiff with contractions. Generally focuses on one sentence at a time, with a general idea of how the conversation is going to go before he opens his mouth. Like Papyrus, focuses more on the content of the idea than describing it to death. Still pretty wordy, when he does speak. He doesn't get derailed easily, but when he does, train of thought screeches to a halt just like his son. 

Pre-void Dingus was really, really bad about talking over people because he does have a superiority complex over others and doesn’t value what they have to say as much as himself. Of his boys, he’s far more likely to interrupt Sans (which Sans does find irritating) but rarely interrupts Papyrus unless it’s very important. When he was in a group, he had to be the center of attention and dominate the conversation. 

Post-void, he’s mellowed considerably and is just so happy/desperate to have people to talk to again that he is much more reserved in his speech. Speaks _very_ differently around his boys, his friends and everyone else. Talks almost like Papyrus when comfortable, though quieter and with a bit more thought. Talks almost exactly like Toriel with everyone else. Also, he is very content to sit back and observe conversations without necessarily taking part.

He tries to avoid jargon when he's talking. It royally cheeses him off when people try to look smart by using unnecessarily complicated language. That being said, he still has an impressive vocabulary and uses it. He just avoids word that anyone with a high school degree couldn't understand. I have that he ended up being royal scientist not because he was a super genius (though he was  _extremely_ intelligent), but because he was a good communicator. 

 

Examples: 

“Hello, how are you?”

  
“… I am aware.”

  
“Once I took the boys ho- I’m sorry, what? Where?”

  
“… um…”

 

“The CORE was built to improve quality of life in the Underground. We originally relied on power from waterwheels, though they were insufficient for the growing population.” - lecture mode


	11. Mettaton

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Either dramatic or sensual. Take your pick.

Flamboyant as all getout. Very active voice and a domineering presence wherever he goes. Will interrupt to bring the attention to himself, but once it’s on him, he’s fairly ok sharing as long as the spotlight returns quickly. He prefers having conversations that make him AND the person he’s talking to look good, though his image usually takes priority.

 

When in a vindictive mood, will subtly put down the other party. Everything he says or does is to highlight something, good or bad, and usually about himself. Throws more shade than an oak tree, but does it under the guise of playful teasing. Well liked for his biting remarks that are never actually cruel enough to hurt anyone’s feelings. He's actually very clever and witty when he isn't in soap opera mode. 

 

Talks in a way where it’s not difficult to understand exactly what he’s getting at if you pay attention. Fairly description-heavy dialogue, using a lot of adjectives and adverbs. Tones DOWN the drama on air. Far more melodramatic in person. Rarely pauses or uses stall words except for dramatic effect. If he does get caught off guard, favored stall word is “Well” and will then overplay the stalling for dramatic effect.

 

It's almost impossible to startle him, beyond literally sneaking up behind him and screaming. He can adapt to almost  _anything_ and respond accordingly, much better than even Sans can. He's extremely quick on his feet, and follows a natural flow from him mind to his mouth with a quick filter to keep things on track. He's among the most eloquent speakers of the cast, but when he falls flat, he falls  _hard._ Fortunately, he recovers exceptionally well. Very good at downplaying mistakes, and doesn't get flustered. 

 

Has a decent vocabulary. Like most other characters, he tries to keep himself accessible. However, if he's trying to look superior or intimidate somebody, he will use smart-sounding words that he may or may not know the meaning of to his advantage. (He's not super reckless, though, and typically sticks to words he does know the meaning of to keep from looking stupid.) 

 

Like Muffet, he uses a lot of false endearments. He also expects the same level of smoke-blowing from others that he gives out, and gets huffy when they don't perform to his expectations. 

 

Extremely tonal. It's easy to infer his emotions based on his inflection, sometimes to an annoying extent. (I headcanon him being extremely whiny.) 

 

Examples:

"Helloooo Darlings! I have arrived!"

 

"How is my sweetest little sugar plum doing today, hm? Good? Good. Let's take care of some things." 

 

"I am so hurt that you would think that of  _me!_ What do you take me for, some unwashed, barely literate barbarian?!" (When in an argument with a human that he thinks is an unwashed, barely literate barbarian.)

 

"This is taking too long and I'm getting bored. I think this recipe needs a... HIGHER TEMPERATURE! NGAAAAAHHHH!!!"

"You would think that, wouldn't you." 

 

[teasing Alphys about her many crushes]


End file.
